


a mercy

by Sweven



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebellion Era - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Death, F/M, Mission Fic, Murder, Padmé Amidala Lives, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-27
Updated: 2020-05-27
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:21:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24394198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sweven/pseuds/Sweven
Summary: Padmé goes on a mission to kill Darth Vader. Killing him is a mercy. It has to be.A short ficlet based on the prompt "Write a character killing another character" from the SWBigBang Discord server
Relationships: Padmé Amidala & Obi-Wan Kenobi, Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker
Comments: 4
Kudos: 9





	a mercy

It was a mercy, in the end.

Anakin had been dead for years now, Obi-Wan kept telling her before she left on the mission. Only Vader remained, an empty husk of his former self. No remnant of Anakin Skywalker remained, Vader was nothing but a puppet kept alive by the Dark Side, by hatred and anguish--and by the Emperor.

Padmé clung to that truth.

It had been a bold plan from the start. Walking willingly into the Empire with the wealth of knowledge that Padmé held of the Rebellion was foolish to say the least. So many steps could have gone wrong, could have gotten her captured by a power-hungry Moff, killed by a trigger-happy Stormtrooper, or brought directly to the Emperor.

But it didn't. Their machinations had worked out perfectly, so much so that Padmé couldn't believe her success until the last moment. Fear clogged her throat as she watched the lightsaber disappear into the dark suit, its blade red now, another thing that made her resolve stronger. She struggled to steady the blade as it cut through the plastoid at Vader's abdomen, carefully leading the saber up, destroying the durasteel and the vital organs beneath.

It was done. Padmé never remembered turning off the lightsaber, nor if the dying man ever said something. She only remembered kneeling next to the broken shell of a man that she had loved once.

With a sob, all of her fear fell away. Fear that it was all a trap and Vader had seen through her after all, that Palpatine would laugh as he took everything from her again. Fear that Vader would find her, find the twins, and twist them into something horrible.

It _was_ a mercy, Padmé would never have been able to go through with it if she didn't believe that. But Obi-Wan had been wrong.

In the end, when she'd removed his helmet, Anakin had opened his eyes and looked up at her, not with the yellow eyes she'd been told about, that she'd expected, but blue, blue like the waters of the lake on Naboo where they got married a lifetime ago. For a moment Padmé let herself drown in those eyes, the could-have-beens, the should-have-beens. The eyes of a man she still loved, still, despite everything.

Then he was gone. The essence of Anakin Skywalker flickered away, and Padmé couldn't help but think that the galaxy was lesser for it. She allowed herself a single, shaky breath before she rose.

Padmé had been the only one who could get close enough to Anakin to end it, and she had done her duty. She knew that when she returned, the Rebellion would cheer for her, for this victory, and they were right to. But she carried a hollowness within her as she fled from the Executor, her heart heavy with grief and regret, and knew that this wasn't something she would ever celebrate.


End file.
